If we made contact with aliens, how would religions react?

[Propianotuner]

CMZ Thank you for answering my questions. You say that you aim to follow Christ. It is good to aim to follow Christ but the Bible, which if corrupted, would want to soften these words as it says that any work of man is condemned, no work is justified in His sight:

Isaiah 64: 6 We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf,

Romans 3:10 as it is written: None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. 13 Their throat is pan open grave; they use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. 14 Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. 15 Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 in their paths are ruin and misery, 17 and the way of peace they have not known. 18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being 3 will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

7 There is no one who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to take hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.

Romans 3:23 for fall have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 gand are justified by his grace as a gift, ithrough the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God jput forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Can you present your perspective on how these passages are to be read? How was the audience supposed to understand those lines of text at the time and in what context do we find ourselves so far as the rest of those chapters?

That may be asking for a lot of exposition, but I've seen endless examples of Christians simply quoting passages as if the reader should fall in line with their perspective merely because of the references. Many of us, even quite a few non-Christians, have read those passages; it is the most well read literary collection in the world so naturally there are going to be many people around who have an exceptional amount of exposure to it. With that said we aren't bound to just read your references and come out of that reading with the same understanding of the text as you.

 

[Mary Lyn]

I don't know how else they can be understood other than people not accepting that they are the word of God, and then they will be meaningless to them. The person I am discussing with does accept that the Bible contains the word of God although they think they are corrupted. However, the Dead Sea scrolls refutes that belief.

 

[Propianotuner]

I don't know how else they can be understood other than people not accepting that they are the word of God, and then they will be meaningless to them. The person I am discussing with does accept that the Bible contains the word of God although they think they are corrupted. However, the Dead Sea scrolls refutes that belief.

It isn't as simple of a question as "well is this the word of God or not". There are many different Christian denominations with their own unique ways of understanding the literature that they hold sacred.

Regardless of whether a passage is this or that it is a passage. You are reading that passage using your language skills and whatever other means you have at your disposal to understand it. We all do the same when reading anything. No one should be expected to just agree with you when given a passage without you providing the slightest justification for your reasoning process.

We all are plenty literate as well and many of us have read the Bible extensively. I am a former Christian myself and was indeed confident in the inspiration of scripture. Also I happen to be keenly aware of textual criticism and the issue of the corruption of the text, and given no small amount of reading and time spent considering the subject I am fairly certain, as are a critical mass of the scholars themselves who actually participate in collecting and studying ancient literature and graciously providing such information to the public, the Bible is a remarkably well preserved literary corpus.

That is thanks in no small part due to the sheer volume of work done by scribes and scholars the world over, from very early specimens such as P4, P52, P90, the marvelous Chester Beatty Library, right on down to the massive amount of codices, single books, and fragments we have from the Byzantine scriptoriums.

Popular beliefs on the subject largely rest on heavy handed oversimplifications and a lack of requisite exposure to how textual criticism really works. The sheer volume of biblical manuscripts is unparalleled in the study of ancient literature, and that there are variations in the text actually serves to bolster academic confidence in its preservation. The same variations are observed to persist over great periods of time, and a very sizeable portion of them can actually be traced to scribal traditions, e.g. one of the largest collections of textual variants is known as the Caesarean text and it has been the experience of scholars that manuscripts in one of these primary text types share in most, if not all, of those variants.

It is generally understood, even among many of those at the Jesus Seminar who are well known for their skepticism (see Bart Ehrman and Dominic Crossan), that it is more true to say that when modern translators go about publishing a copy of the Bible, they have 101% of the text, not 99%. Also, the perspective of the public is seriously skewed because they haven't been made to understand that there are vanishingly few textual variants that actually alter the meaning of a passage.

 

[Mary Lyn]

Okay Propianotuner

As far as I know, there are no disagreements amongst the traditional Christian denominations regarding the texts I quoted, in that they say: man has moved from the original form in which he was created (not necessarily because of original sin) and because God is holy, something needs to be done to enable the man to be united with God which was his will and the only way possible is, not for the man to think that he can just obey the laws of God apart from the ceremonial Jewish laws, but through the benefit Jesus Christ gained through his death on the cross. That is, salvation by faith.

 

[CMZ]

We are in an autism forum so it feels weird arguing about or even merely discussing religion in an autism forum. Our discussion is also veering from the intent of the original post. Being a "Mormon" (a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) I am well aware of the arguments people use against it.

 

[Crossbreed]

We are in an autism forum so it feels weird arguing about or even merely discussing religion in an autism forum.

Not if you consider that it is the "Religion" sub-forum. (There is an option in your control panel, if you would prefer not to participate in it.)

 

[CMZ]

Just realized I still have this tab open. I do realize this is the "Religion" sub-forum. It's just that the questions coming up were totally different than what this original post was about. And the line of questioning is one that "Mormons" tend to get but that there are abundant answers for. If someone would like me to point them to a resource that answers their questions I can do so. At this particular moment in time when I'm dealing a lot with my ASD I don't have a lot of personal energy to direct towards answering things that have been answered elsewhere, although I do feel a good degree of willingness to engage in sincere discussions. Thank you for understanding. Be well.

 

[Joel's Hear]

View attachment 44858

Is that you?

 

[Joel's Hear]

Can you present your perspective on how these passages are to be read? How was the audience supposed to understand those lines of text at the time and in what context do we find ourselves so far as the rest of those chapters?

That may be asking for a lot of exposition, but I've seen endless examples of Christians simply quoting passages as if the reader should fall in line with their perspective merely because of the references. Many of us, even quite a few non-Christians, have read those passages; it is the most well read literary collection in the world so naturally there are going to be many people around who have an exceptional amount of exposure to it. With that said we aren't bound to just read your references and come out of that reading with the same understanding of the text as you.

I believe the passage in Isaiah said how the hearts of men and women had turned away from anything good (God). The passages from Romans reaffirms this yet says a belief in Jesus can turn a woman or man'she art back to God, away from the corrupt world that had been built.

 

[Mr Allen]

As mad as it sounds, if Aliens landed in the UK, technically they'd be classed as Intergalactic immigrants, therefore the right wing press would complain about them.

But that's something for the Politics section not this one.

 

[Joshua the Writer]

I'm not sure, but it'd seem possible that they'd lose their crap or maybe even go insane, especially if those aliens are, in fact, humans (homo sapiens), or even some sort of evolved species related to the homo classification. (not the sexuality kind, the scientific kind, get your minds out of the gutter)